Bring back individual movable armies on the map

[Hopciu]

We might as well go to more abstraction even, just assign geographical regions as a container, everyone puts their armies into that region, and the game simulates the war and gives you the results. I don't mind having no moving frontlines, if that increases performance and chops unnecessary micro.

This. Instead of armies occupying physical place, or being assigned to single front, stack up all forces on the single landmass as Theatre. In the example you presented, succesful naval invasion on EIC would create Indian Theatre, with your Division pitted against their, resolving battles based on their stats and some help of RNG. No risk of enemies using empty front to get rid of you freely, no need to divide your armies into smaller entities to cover more land, no need to pause-unpause the game to chase enemy forces.

 

[Silens]

In the example you presented, succesful naval invasion on EIC would create Indian Theatre

Let's go even further. The theatre is created from the very beginning, and even the naval invasion would be fully simulated in the background as part of the army being assigned to the theatre. Hands-off means you don't have to manually set up any invasions.

Depending on the task (=wargoals), you'd have a rough estimate of how much resources your general needs. You give him that, and he goes off and tries to accomplish it. After a while you get first results, and can accept the outcome, or continue to keep it going.

Wars would initially only be fought over the war goals and leave everything else untouched, with limited expeditionary forces assigned to the limited tasks. If one side escalates (by widening the scope of the war, by sending more troops, involving other powers etc.), it eats a hefty infamy penalty, opens itself to more wargoals, possible mid-war intervention from other powers, and more theatres become available.

I'd also discourage total wars. Not just with an infamy penalty for repeated escalations, but by raising the stakes. If one side escalates and the mainland becomes the target of the war, and one side fights until its entire homeland (capital included) is occupied? Then you're at the total mercy of the victors, who can (and will!) disband your armies, scuttle your fleets, distribute all your colonies, depose your government, change your laws, and shatter your nation.

Yes, looking at you, Queen Victoria, off to Elba with you. You cause hundreds of thousands of deaths over reducing the autonomy of Lanfang and didn't know when to stop? You better believe that this is the end of you. Remember, the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Trianon, the Treaty of Saint Germain, they were all in the timeframe of the game. Cause a world war? Suffer the consequences of losing one. Would take a while for most nations to gear up for war again, and we'd have peace for our time.

 

[Wagner Joy Division]

While the current military system is very far from being optimal, individual movable units is about the last thing I want in Vicky 3. It's a pain in EU4, it was a pain in V2, and to a lesser extent it was still a pain in Imperator, even with the AI.
It's just a horribly outdated system that is best relegated to pages of history.

EUIV is a 12 years old game. An ancient game. With movable armies...and twice as many players averaged out even with Victoria 3 being the game with the most free weekends of, if I am not mistaken, most Paradox titles.

Adding HoIIV will not be fair Ithink, because it is so much more successful than "Victoria 3-like product". Somehow micro-intensive game earn concurrent players faster than any other Paradox games with automated wars so far.

I've played HOI4 games where its so micro-heavy that you need three players just on the Soviet Union. And they all stay busy for hours on end.

That doesn't mean the broken fronts in Vic3 are okay, but let's not pretend that the micro is anything like HOI4.

Are you seriously comparing the most complex example of multitasking and largest frontage of entire Paradox grand strategy series with Victoria 3 wars? In multiplayer? In a session with most of minors filled? Becuase that 5% who play MP know how extremely rare that happens. It is like defending some shovelware RPG skill usefulness that adds "+1.5% to fire resistance when crounching and surrounded by turtle-type enemy at night." maybe because comparing single player experience would put V3 in a much much much worse position, when it comes to micro and battleplanner implementation.

It wouldn't be Victoria 3 anymore. This game is explicitly not about micromanaging army locations.

Not about getting new players and positive reviews either.

By the way, let's see what original developers of projects with ratings above "Mixed" think about armies:

Also this one is my favorite:

I suppose it is a good news progressive developers in charge of Victoria 3 do not have such archaic and luddite views on a matter of core game mechanic.

 

[Askorti]

EUIV is a 12 years old game. An ancient game. With movable armies...and twice as many players averaged out even with Victoria 3 being the game with the most free weekends of, if I am not mistaken, most Paradox titles.

If the only difference between Vic3 and EUIV was the presence or absence of movable armies, you'd have a point. But it isn't, therefore you don't.

 

[Superdark33]

Let's go even further. The theatre is created from the very beginning, and even the naval invasion would be fully simulated in the background as part of the army being assigned to the theatre. Hands-off means you don't have to manually set up any invasions.

Depending on the task (=wargoals), you'd have a rough estimate of how much resources your general needs. You give him that, and he goes off and tries to accomplish it. After a while you get first results, and can accept the outcome, or continue to keep it going.

Wars would initially only be fought over the war goals and leave everything else untouched, with limited expeditionary forces assigned to the limited tasks. If one side escalates (by widening the scope of the war, by sending more troops, involving other powers etc.), it eats a hefty infamy penalty, opens itself to more wargoals, possible mid-war intervention from other powers, and more theatres become available.

I'd also discourage total wars. Not just with an infamy penalty for repeated escalations, but by raising the stakes. If one side escalates and the mainland becomes the target of the war, and one side fights until its entire homeland (capital included) is occupied? Then you're at the total mercy of the victors, who can (and will!) disband your armies, scuttle your fleets, distribute all your colonies, depose your government, change your laws, and shatter your nation.

Yes, looking at you, Queen Victoria, off to Elba with you. You cause hundreds of thousands of deaths over reducing the autonomy of Lanfang and didn't know when to stop? You better believe that this is the end of you. Remember, the Treaty of Versailles, the Treaty of Trianon, the Treaty of Saint Germain, they were all in the timeframe of the game. Cause a world war? Suffer the consequences of losing one. Would take a while for most nations to gear up for war again, and we'd have peace for our time.

I personally wouldnt mind warfare changed to something abstract like this, dumping bucketfuls of soldiers into semi-arbitrary tracts of land and making sure my supplies can reach them, but i do wonder how much of a frontline/the illusion of frontline you can maintain with it, like how much you can rework the current system to function properly before making this abstraction.

The same goes for individual regiments: i definatly see the appeal and fun of assigning individual armies with individual regiments built as barracks in individual states but theres gotta be a better solution that has less tedium and carpal tunnel syndrome.

uch

paradox should just make a battle royal crossover gacha game because these have a lot of concurrent players all the time so clearly they are the superior games.

 

[cdub8d]

EUIV is a 12 years old game. An ancient game. With movable armies...and twice as many players averaged out even with Victoria 3 being the game with the most free weekends of, if I am not mistaken, most Paradox titles.

Adding HoIIV will not be fair Ithink, because it is so much more successful than "Victoria 3-like product". Somehow micro-intensive game earn concurrent players faster than any other Paradox games with automated wars so far.

Are you seriously comparing the most complex example of multitasking and largest frontage of entire Paradox grand strategy series with Victoria 3 wars? In multiplayer? In a session with most of minors filled? Becuase that 5% who play MP know how extremely rare that happens. It is like defending some shovelware RPG skill usefulness that adds "+1.5% to fire resistance when crounching and surrounded by turtle-type enemy at night." maybe because comparing single player experience would put V3 in a much much much worse position, when it comes to micro and battleplanner implementation.

Not about getting new players and positive reviews either.

By the way, let's see what original developers of projects with ratings above "Mixed" think about armies:

Also this one is my favorite:

I suppose it is a good news progressive developers in charge of Victoria 3 do not have such archaic and luddite views on a matter of core game mechanic.

Ok but Vicky games are a really special niche so they can't directly be compared to other PDX games. Instead we must go by vibes and be happy that there is an average of ~8k players. See that is really great for a super duper niche game like the vicky series. Please ignore the 100k on launch and mountains other that didn't buy because of design decisions...

/s for those that can't tell

War is one issue of Vicky 3. Imo the devs failed to understand why Vicky 2 was loved so much. Then the economic gameplay is essentially a construction queue simulatior. The trade rework does look pretty good so far but we need like 4 trade like reworks to fix things.

 

[ingenieux]

EUIV is a 12 years old game. An ancient game. With movable armies...and twice as many players averaged out even with Victoria 3 being the game with the most free weekends of, if I am not mistaken, most Paradox titles.

Adding HoIIV will not be fair Ithink, because it is so much more successful than "Victoria 3-like product". Somehow micro-intensive game earn concurrent players faster than any other Paradox games with automated wars so far.

Are you seriously comparing the most complex example of multitasking and largest frontage of entire Paradox grand strategy series with Victoria 3 wars? In multiplayer? In a session with most of minors filled? Becuase that 5% who play MP know how extremely rare that happens. It is like defending some shovelware RPG skill usefulness that adds "+1.5% to fire resistance when crounching and surrounded by turtle-type enemy at night." maybe because comparing single player experience would put V3 in a much much much worse position, when it comes to micro and battleplanner implementation.

Not about getting new players and positive reviews either.

By the way, let's see what original developers of projects with ratings above "Mixed" think about armies:

Also this one is my favorite:

I suppose it is a good news progressive developers in charge of Victoria 3 do not have such archaic and luddite views on a matter of core game mechanic.

Yep, EU4, a game i often read people complaining about the tediousness after 200 years of campaign, i wonder what things could cause that ?
Oh and that dev you're quoting is copying army mechanics from I:R, one of which that was praised being : the automation of armies.

 

[Wagner Joy Division]

Ok but Vicky games are a really special niche so they can't directly be compared to other PDX games. Instead we must go by vibes and be happy that there is an average of ~8k players. See that is really great for a super duper niche game like the vicky series. Please ignore the 100k on launch and mountains other that didn't buy because of design decisions...

HoIIV had 10360 players on release after initial release spike and kept growing and growing.
Stellaris was a SUPER niche game with 9201 players after release month. Only Galactic Civilizations(in a terrible shape) were a contender in a genre because nobody released anything after Master of Orion II and, maybe, Imperium galactica 2 and entire space grand strategy genre were considered a black hole for investment. At some point, entire Grand strategy genre were considered a niche, until Hearts of Iron IV grabbed permanent top-20 steam concurrent players lists. The very mentality of "...but our game is niche!" is already a verdict for Victoria 3.

Yep, EU4, a game i often read people complaining about the tediousness after 200 years of campaign, i wonder what things could cause that ?
Oh and that dev you're quoting is copying army mechanics from I:R, one of which that was praised being : the automation of armies.

And that complaining people kept playing it and buying its DLCs and adding to concurrent players numbers.
Care to remind me, that very developer added army automation as a mandatory feature or a toggleable option, with ability to manually control armies intact?

 

[ingenieux]

And that complaining people kept playing it and buying its DLCs and adding to concurrent players numbers.

Dumb argument, they enjoy the first 200 years of the game and they come back for that, because it's cool.

Care to remind me, that very developer added army automation as a mandatory feature or a toggleable option, with ability to manually control armies intact?

Do you want to move armies on a state level or a province level ?